Friday, July 25, 2014

Friday Roundup.

Bubble Gum Orchestra-Beyond Time. Michael Hildebrandt, a/k/a Bubble Gum Orchestra, returns again with Beyond Time, another collection of ELO-inspired tunes. Just as last year's The Discovery was a riff on ELO's Discovery, this follow-up takes its cue from ELO's Discovery followup, Time (I'm guessing the next BGO released will be some variation of Secret Messages). Anyway, I probably don't need to tell you that if you're an ELO fanatic this album is a must, from the rocking "23rd Century Woman" (which goes beyond ELO to borrow the guitar riff from Foreigner's "Long, Long Way from Home") to the futuristic "I'm in Love With a Robot" (BGO's nod to ELO's "Yours Truly, 2095") to the catchy "Return 2 4 Ever". But the quintessential BGO track is "ELO Forever", the lyrics to which are primarily comprised of ELO song titles (example: "Mr. Blue Sky met his Sweet Talkin' Woman/they fell in love and their hearts Turned to Stone"), the best track of its kind since Bob Dylan used Springsteen song titles to write the Traveling Wilburys' "Tweeter & the Monkey Man".

Peter Buzzelle-Sea of White EP. Boston's Peter Buzzelle is a classic power popper who released a pair of fine discs in 2010 and 2011 but were overlooked on this site. I can't ignore him any longer, though, thanks to his outstanding new EP that's the first power pop disc I've heard with the subject of marrying and marriage as its concept. Opener "I'm Gonna Know You" might be the best power ballad I've heard in years, with a swelling, catchy chorus, while "Til Death Do Us Part" and "Happiness and Misery" are a couple of excellent Posies/Matthew Sweet-styled rockers, and "Our Life is the Song" closes things out in hooky fashion. This might be the best EP of 2014 to date, and I'd daresay you'll like it some much you'll want to marry it.